


Makeup

by KestrelShrike



Category: Mass Effect, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: F/M, Makeup, NSFW, Not too explicit but like, Painting, Smut, explicit - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-20
Updated: 2017-04-20
Packaged: 2018-10-21 10:10:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10683162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KestrelShrike/pseuds/KestrelShrike
Summary: Summary: I was given a prompt of Jaal playing with Ryder’s makeup, and then told to make it smutty. Needless to say, this is NSFW.I really wavered on whether I should have made it MORE explicit- what do you guys think?





	Makeup

Makeup was Wren Ryder’s armor, just as much as her chest piece or helmet. Before going planetside, her routine had to be conducted just so, as short as it was. Eyeliner first, and then eyeshadow, spread over her eyes like the character from that old vid she had watched with Alec- Blade Runner, filmed far before first contact, when AI was just a futuristic concept and not a reality. Every time she applied it, she thought of her father with a pang at once painful and sweet; they may not have seen eye to eye, but every day she realized how similar they had actually been. 

Jaal had taken to watching Ryder in her pre-landing routine, seemingly fascinated by the precision with which she applied everything. Today he interrupted her for the first time, perched on the edge of her bed and leaning forward. “Ryder, may I try?” 

Turning around from her mirror to face him, Ryder shrugged. “Why not? Go wild, Jaal. Not too wild though. I don’t want to have to explain to Lexi why I have an eyeliner pencil lodged in my eye.” With a laugh, she gestured to her tools and scooted her chair back. 

Gently, Jaal picked up the brush Ryder used to apply her eyeshadow, holding it between two fingers gingerly. After dipping it in her favorite dark color, he brushed it over her face, touch so light that it was a tickle more than any real feeling. “Jaal, you’re not going to break me. You can do it a little harder than that.” 

Granted permission, Jaal applied more pressure, silent for a few minutes, biting the corner of his lip in concentration. It was hard for Ryder not to smile at that, and eventually she gave up, settling on, “I like watching you work.” With an audible snap, the brush chose that moment to break beneath Jaal’s fingers as he let out a frustrated grunt and Ryder leaned back unconsciously, eyes closing and then opening as she realized she was in no danger of getting wood shavings in her eyes. 

Time to see the damage. Turning back, Ryder turned her face this way and that in the mirror. Jaal had managed to get the eyeshadow impressively all over her face, his hands simply too large for the precision required to apply just to eyelids, or even near to them. “Well… I look colorful.” It was just about the only polite thing she could say, but as soon as it came out of her mouth, it sounded almost like a condemnation rather than the half-hearted compliment it was meant to be. “I don’t think angara are really built to handle human tools like this. Don’t your people have makeup though?” It seemed like such a universal, a given, but maybe it was yet another thing that was left behind in the Milky Way. 

With one finger, Jaal wiped away a stray spray of dark color, finger tracing down her cheekbone as he did so. “Some angaran have tattoos to represent religious affiliation. When I was a child, my siblings and I would paint the symbols on each other for hours, making up our own. I was always Resistance Jaal.” Ryder leaned into his hand, and then moved forward so that her forehead rested against his own, their breath mingling and becoming one for a long heartbeat. 

“May I paint them on you?” When they separated, Jaal held the remains of the brush still, his eyes flickering between Ryder’s face, the eyeshadow, and a glass of water that would give the pigment a deeper color. 

“Yah. I think I’d like that.” It sounded like fun, almost like a return to childhood. At the same time, there was the possibility of something intimate. Ugh, no Ryder. Please don’t try and put those two thoughts together. 

Jaal gestured to her shirt. “Please remove it, Ryder.” 

Mischief lit up her face. “Oh, you know how to do that well enough by now.” 

“And yet I’ve destroyed enough of your possessions today, and I would be unable to prevent myself from tearing it. I would get no painting down either.” His grave face was broken by a smile wide enough to match her own, and she enjoyed the way his eyes followed her as she lifted her shirt off easily, the way they lingered over every inch of exposed flesh. The goosebumps that raised the fine hairs on her arm and the back of her neck weren’t entirely due to the sudden change in temperature of air on her skin. 

With an arched, challenging eyebrow and acting unasked, Ryder removed her bra as well. It was worth it to see Jaal’s eyes go wide, his vertical pupils going wide as his grasp on the brush tightened enough to almost splinter it further. “Well, I’m waiting,” she told him, tone light, arch. 

Expression once again serious as he settled into concentration, Jaal began to point a series of lines and concentric circles on Ryder’s skin, starting with her shoulders and arms. Down her arm a series of letters appeared, not recognizable by any Greco-Roman standard but because she had seen them before in Aya and on Havarl. “Shelesh? What does it say?” It was difficult to sit still, the light touch tickling her, but Ryder was doing her best, attempting not to wiggle too much just to let Jaal work. 

“That arm says ‘beloved.’ The other is a combination of the angara words for ‘wit’ and ‘fighter.’ Shush now, let me continue.” He began to work on her collarbone now, lingering in the hollow of her throat with the same circular designs she had seen all over Aya, mysterious symbols she hadn’t yet defined the meaning of. They appeared on the skin of some angara, however, and now they were on her own. Unable to suppress a shiver, she looked up at Jaal just once, unexpectedly blushing as he caught her gaze and winked just once, the gesture surprisingly human. 

The brush strokes moved downward now, first a solid line and then another circle, this time around her breasts, going ever more inward in a tight spiral and leaving Ryder gasping again. “Jaal…” Her voice came out rougher than intended, and huskier. 

“Ryder.” His voice echoed her own, the detailed attention he was paying to painting the Shelesh on her breasts far more than he had paid to her arms and throat. He was teasing now, simply brushing over her nipples again and again until Ryder moaned, trying to silence herself with a swift palm over her mouth. They had to be planetside in half an hour… But maybe half an hour was more than enough time. 

“Jaal.” Her tone was more insistent this time, more commanding, and Ryder reached down to still his hand, cupping it over her breast. “Finish painting me later.” Her own hands reached downward, fumbling with the complexities of angaran pants and then finding what she sought. “I think you’re more excited than I am,” she teased, and then he pushed her towards the bed, kissing her insistently. 

Oh yes, thirty minutes was more than enough time.


End file.
